


Never to Roost

by Silmerion



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Gen, Misunderstandings, Post-Volume 5 (RWBY), implied STR
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 00:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16482806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silmerion/pseuds/Silmerion
Summary: Raven hadn't come to Patch for Taiyang, and Tai certainly hadn't been expecting her. He was accustomed to visits from a different bird.(An angsty take on the post-V5 stinger.)





	Never to Roost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Liara_90](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liara_90/gifts).



“You gonna sit up there all day, Qrow? Come on, tell me about my daughters,” Tai commanded.

Raven froze on her perch. She hadn’t planned to out herself on this visit to Summer’s grave, and she cursed the weakness that had drawn her here, cursed her luck that a feather should drop as she passed overhead. He had picked her out among the trees quickly, an inky blemish on a familiar landscape.

But Tai had mistaken her.

He silently held her in his gaze; Raven swore and doubled down on the deception, swiveling her head about in the most genuine bird imitation she could manage. He narrowed his eyes, but returned to gardening. Raven was about to leave when he spoke up again. “The last letter I got from Ruby had you laid up for a while,” he said, warm timbre edging harsh as he raised his voice. “Said it was poison from a scorpion faunus. Got that one a week ago. How long ago’d she write that, last month?”

Raven didn’t respond. She didn’t know, in any case.

“It must’ve been a while. Yang hadn’t found her yet,” he pressed. Still Raven didn’t acknowledge the question, and Tai kept quiet too as he emptied the watering can into the flowerbed.

Despite herself, watching Tai garden was making Raven nostalgic. It had taken her some time to get comfortable with gardens after breaching Beacon - preposterous artificial geometries constructed from only the most aesthetic flora, they had evinced to her civilized society’s scorn for whatever it couldn’t box up. But Tai had loved gardening as long as she’d known him. Summer had caught the bug from him even before they’d all started dating, and through them she had learned to appreciate its meditative, centering domesticity.

To whatever extent the sunflowers were centering Tai today, it wasn’t enough. “Yang _did_ find her, right?” he asked, too casually. “She made it to Mistral okay?” Raven knew casual Tai from distressed Tai, and he was well past simple distress, chewing furiously on his lower lip between interrogations. A swell of feckless jealousy rose in Raven’s chest at the privilege taken. Yes, she thought. Your daughter made it okay.

Tai dropped the watering can down and set to boring a hole into the wall with his stare, back ramrod straight, arms crossed. Whatever question was coming next, Tai needed to brace himself for it. “Qrow. Ruby made it sound like you _knew_ about that faunus - well. Maybe didn’t know about him specifically. But you knew why he was there. Knew he was there for a reason.” Tai turned bodily toward her now. “He was after the Eyes. Wasn’t he.”

Raven hadn’t seen Ruby fight the faunus, nor had she seen her fight in Haven. But gods if the girl wasn’t the reincarnation of her mother. It hit her, then, what she’d nearly enabled, what could as easily as not have gone wrong. Who could have died all over again. She’d known, of course, but she’d trusted Qrow to handle it, or maybe she’d told herself the Rose girl’s demise would just prove her unworthy. Maybe, even, thought it would be a mercy to get it out of the way so soon. The urge to retch almost knocked her into human form.

“Look, I haven’t been part of Ozpin’s game for years. I get it. But I need _something,_ Qrow, _please, anything_ ,” Tai begged. “I know you’re not gonna tell me that they can come home soon, so...just...hell. Promise me you getting _mortally wounded_ was a _fluke._  Promise me you’re protecting them out there where - where I can’t.”

He is, Tai, she wanted to shout. He’s protecting them from people like me.

But she didn’t shout that, didn’t shout anything. At length Tai scoffed and resumed his attentions. “I know. You’re just a bird. God. Look at me go. Talking to myself.”

**Author's Note:**

> If we ever get to see this scene play out, I don't particularly think it'll go like this. But Liara got it in my head that Tai might resent Qrow, even if Tai's daughters joining Ozpin's war wasn't strictly Qrow's fault, so of course I had to write that.


End file.
